iRacing.com – First Lotus 79 Screenshots

iRacing.com has released two screenshots of the Lotus 79, the first Formula One car to make its way into the online racing simulation. The shots show the historic British racing car at Watkins Glen, sporting the legendary John Player Special livery in a slightly changed form.

Driven by notable drivers such as Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson, the 79 was the first Formula One car to make full use of ground effect aerodynamics. The car scored 7 wins in 26 races, helping Mario Andretti to win the 1978 Formula One world championship.

The addition of the car will most likely get many European sim racers interested in iRacing as you don’t often get a chance to drive a fully laser-scanned legendary Formula One car elsewhere. The Lotus is expected to be available with the new build of iRacing’s simulation.

navalhawkeye

*searches for a new pair of underwear*

Raikku

Sad news was that Corvette is delayed to “some later time”.

Even VW TDI could be there before Vette.

phil23

Holy crap 😮

Looks gr8

Paul Kelly

VERY drool-worthy. But I hope people can’t put bizarre paint jobs on that car. That Lotus looks weird with anything but the famous John Player Special colors! 🙂

Strange choice. Of course the Lotus 79 is an icon but surely iRacing must hope to attract the GPL crowd and I can’t see it appealing to the GPL crowd. Why didn’t they do the 49 I wonder or maybe the Eagle? That would really show how much sims have developed in 10 years.

carbonfibre

I’ll reserve my opinion until I hear the beast in action. I’m not confident of iRacing’s sound system at all.

http://www.racinglinedevelopments.com the.cosmic.pope

DW:
Strange choice. Of course the Lotus 79 is an icon but surely iRacing must hope to attract the GPL crowd and I can’t see it appealing to the GPL crowd. Why didn’t they do the 49 I wonder or maybe the Eagle? That would really show how much sims have developed in 10 years.

The Lotus 79 was offered to them by someone who owns one. They took the chance and scanned it. Bit of luck rather than choice I guess. 🙂

The Lotus 79 was offered to them by someone who owns one. They took the chance and scanned it. Bit of luck rather than choice I guess. 🙂

There are also some personal reasons that probably influenced the decision of choosing that car. Divina Galica, iRacing’s Director of Partner Relations, was involved in Formula One in 1978, driving Hesketh Racing’s car but leaving after failing to qualify for the first two races of 1978.

Zenitchik

DW:
Strange choice. Of course the Lotus 79 is an icon but surely iRacing must hope to attract the GPL crowd and I can’t see it appealing to the GPL crowd. Why didn’t they do the 49 I wonder or maybe the Eagle? That would really show how much sims have developed in 10 years.

The people behind iRacing were the first people to create a historic car sim with NASCAR Legends and GP Legends. It seems natural that they would want to give the community what the community always referred to as GPL 2.

Watching the community for some time and being a fan of F1 I really have an interest in a few eras in F1. The 60’s, the 70’s and the 90’s. The 79 is the perfect example of a 70’s car (though it was probably a car capable of beating most 1980 cars in the right hands.

The 79, as we said around the time of it’s announcement, will not be the last historic vehicle.

hypertek

if they can provide true 78-79 liveries on those cars as well as the tracks, than they could go for a nonofficial title as GPL2.. i think alot of the GPL guys tho are in love wiht the period correct liveries/era feel of that game, lets see if iracing will pull that off.

Stephen

For the “most realistic sim in the universe and beyond”, having a grid full of Lotus 79 with fantasy liveries looks a bit ridiculous to me.

jux

Stephen:
For the “most realistic sim in the universe and beyond”, having a grid full of Lotus 79 with fantasy liveries looks a bit ridiculous to me.

They already have full grids of Sprint Cup Chevys with fantasy liveries, and that doesn’t seem to be a problem for anyone.

riches

Why did iRacing take the first full ground effect F1 car?
This car was famous for sticking on the track, making it almost an arcade racer (for a sim).
Cornering spees where insane, untill you reached a point where you would catapult in to the sidewall or worse.
I have seen cars flying trough the air when they lost their vacuum/ground effect.
Also when well executed this car is much more easy to drive compared to cars with a fully flat bottom.
Don’t get me wrong, i love all what colin chapman created.
But a full field of these cars is not really confincing.
I would have chosen a bit older F1 car, to recreate a real drivers car.

http://www.bsimracing.com BSR-WiX

i guess Iracing will only create a car when they have full acces to the car and data behind it. The car is now owned by Duncan Dayton who drives the historic series. i guess he is an iRacing Fan.
I was at my home track Zolder [BE] when the car debuted. i was only 13 years old then , but i can remember to car looked all but easy when it was chased by Ricarde Patrese.

Howie47

I guess in about 10 years when iRacing has acquired a full field of cars. It will finally reach the full Sim status. Until then it remains a curiosity in what can and can’t be achieved with laser scanning. Isn’t rFactor2 Pro. also going after the real race drivers market. With open mod-ability, so every driver can drive an exact version of their own race-car. It would be way ahead of iRacing. Wouldn’t it?

Paul Kelly

Howie47:
I guess in about 10 years when iRacing has acquired a full field of cars. It will finally reach the full Sim status. Until then it remains a curiosity in what can and can’t be achieved with laser scanning. Isn’t rFactor2 Pro. also going after the real race drivers market. With open mod-ability, so every driver can drive an exact version of their own race-car. It would be way ahead of iRacing. Wouldn’t it?

I don’t get this “full field of cars” comment. Are you referring to the number of cars available or the number of racers competing regularly online?

If it’s the former, of course iRacing won’t have as many cars available as rFactor, for two reasons. One, it hasn’t been out as long. Two, all of its vehicles are built in-house to exacting specifications by people who actually know physics and the inner workings of the car. Compare that with 80 percent of rFactor’s mod teams, who consider themselves to be physics’ geniuses because they can use Notepad to steal the physics’ values of other mods and tweak them until they “feel right.”

Again, the open mod-ability of rFactor 2 could be a blessing or a curse. In the hands of mod teams like Historix, CTDP or Team Players, it could be brilliant. In the hands of Notepad physics “gurus,” it will be the same mess that it is now.

At least with iRacing, you get consistency across the board.

Just curious, Howie: Have you tried iRacing? There’s a HELL of a lot more to it than laser-scanned tracks. And even if that was its only advantage, it would be significant over any other sim.

I was a skeptic like you. Then I tried iRacing with an open mind. Talk about Eureka moments.

http://www.bsimracing.com BSR-WiX

Paul: when you say “I was a skeptic like you. Then I tried iRacing with an open mind. Talk about Eureka moments.”

Exactly my experience. I was a skeptic to. Then i had a go, and ever since September , never gave it one thought to quit.
Its not the GFX , its not the physics , its not the competition, or the rules… its the entire package that stand out. it is my nr1. If in a while they should manage to lower the price, i am sure allot more people would get interested.

Paul Kelly

Same here, BSR. iRacing isn’t perfect, but it’s by far the most complete, satisfying package in sim racing. A rare, rare example of “you get what you pay for.”

Ever since I tried iRacing with an open mind, I have no desire to race Live For Speed or GTR 2 (deleted both), and the only rFactor mods that interest me in the slightest bit are Historic GT & Touring, Caterham and 1970 World Sports Car Championship. They’re the only mods that are in the same ballpark as iRacing in terms of feel and FFB, and really none of the tracks in rFactor — even the brilliant VM circuits — can compare to the subtlety of the iRacing circuits.

Yes, I’m gushing. I sound like a blubbering fanboy. But iRacing is that good. I’ll stop drooling and shut up now. :shame:

Howie47

Paul Kelly: I don’t get this “full field of cars” comment. Are you referring to the number of cars available or the number of racers competing regularly online?

A full grid of a actual racing serious, other then cup or same car racing. Like they have a couple GT’s, a couple open wheelers, a couple Nascar type cars. But to have real appeal to the Sim racing community. They need a full grid of
a serious that races mixed cars. There is plenty of such serious in the U.S. Instead they’ve got Solstice cup, Midget cup, Mazda cup. How about doing SCCA historic, Speed World Challenge, ALMS/LeMans, Grand-Am, SCCA, Karting, Rally. They are very limited in there scoop. Especially for their (huge) price. Now everyone is jumping on the laser scanned track band wagon. Just makes for easier modeling. So the prise is no longer prohibited. Take on something like SCCA make it work on the consoles and PC. They could sell it for 60$ a pop and make more money then they every dreamed of. And still have there pay as you drive competition offer for the enthusiast.

Howie47

Yeah I don’t understand their business model. It seems very stagnating to me. They need to build a huge base of fans first. Not rely on Papy’s past fan base, or the Sim community. Release a free demo. So people can get proficient enough that they’ll want to join their on line
system and pay for it. Offer prizes, since they’re charging. By the way. I’m not applying for a job. Thanks.

A full grid of a actual racing serious, other then cup or same car racing. Like they have a couple GT’s, a couple open wheelers, a couple Nascar type cars. But to have real appeal to the Sim racing community. They need a full grid of
a serious that races mixed cars.

I don’t think you can speak on behalf of the sim community.

Also, it is just not financially feasible or sensible for them to build that many cars for the same class while maintaining the quality that their vehicle models have. If they were like modders and based their work on photos and notepad guesstimates it would be possible, but as it is, such a combination of accuracy and volume would be possible only for the big publishers (Microsoft, Sony, EA), but so far they have not been interested because the hard core sim community is tiny.

A full grid of a actual racing serious, other then cup or same car racing. Like they have a couple GT’s, a couple open wheelers, a couple Nascar type cars. But to have real appeal to the Sim racing community. They need a full grid of
a serious that races mixed cars. There is plenty of such serious in the U.S. Instead they’ve got Solstice cup, Midget cup, Mazda cup. How about doing SCCA historic, Speed World Challenge, ALMS/LeMans, Grand-Am, SCCA, Karting, Rally. They are very limited in there scoop. Especially for their (huge) price. Now everyone is jumping on the laser scanned track band wagon. Just makes for easier modeling. So the prise is no longer prohibited. Take on something like SCCA make it work on the consoles and PC. They could sell it for 60$ a pop and make more money then they every dreamed of. And still have there pay as you drive competition offer for the enthusiast.

GTR 2 is all about mixed-class racing, but how many rFactor mods offer quality mixed-class racing? I can count on one hand: Serie Du Mans, NAGT, Historic GT and Touring, World Sports Car Championship, EOAA GT. That’s about it.

The VAST majority of rFactor mods are spec or one series, such as F1. Plus as jux said, the quality of the iRacing cars is superior to most rFactor mods.

Who else is jumping on the laser-scanned wagon besides Eastern Creek and Oran Park at rFactor? That’s two out of 100+ tracks available. I wouldn’t exactly call that an overflowing bandwagon.

And Piddy, who laser-scanned Eastern Creek, even has admitted at rFC that his equipment wasn’t the best and didn’t simulate the bumps as accurately as possible. Just read the March 16 and March 27 comments in this thread:

Nearly everyone who has driven the real-life tracks modeled in iRacing has said iRacing has NAILED the surfaces of the tracks they have created. They’re dead-nuts accurate (sorry for the construction term!).

Plus you’re missing the point of iRacing. They’re not trying to dumb down the driving model and physics engine to appeal to the masses through consoles. They’re trying to attract those who are interested in a true virtual racing experience or those for whom console racing has become tedious due to its lack of realism — I was in that camp four years ago — to the highest level of the PC sim experience.

iRacing isn’t Budweiser or Miller Lite. It’s a quality microbrew that is trying to expand its market share. It’s definitely not for everyone, but iRacing knows there is a larger, untapped market out there — pardon the pun — that would enjoy the taste of its quality brew better than Clydesdale piss in a bottle disguised as beer.

You pay more for a quality microbrew than you do for Bud or Miller Lite. And you get what you pay for. You can call it elitist; I call it value for money.

iRacing is no different.

Take care,
PK

Richie61

Cool car :sd:
Weird having an (1) old F1 car and no old “scanned” old tracks 😐
They should have redone GPL, as they own the rights to it. :weird:

Raikku

stabiz:
Ok, thats it! I ordered the 3 month thingy + Daytona. Lets see what this is all about.

Well, see you there then, have to drive some Solstice/Legends-races anyway.

…in higher classes it’s occasionally too tough…

FooAtari

A demo huh?

Just buy a one month sub! $19, which equals £11 in the UK.

Thats the price of a take away pizza, or two cinema tickets. Not exactly bank busting stuff. It’s more than enough to try the service and a turn a true sceptic (like me) inot a beleiver (like me!). It’s not like you have to re-sub if you don’t like it.

DW

Richie61: Cool car Weird having an (1) old F1 car and no old “scanned” old tracks They should have redone GPL, as they own the rights to it.

The lack of old tracks does rather preclude a “complete” GPL2, but chicanes were around by the late 70s and some tracks won’t have altered that much.

As far as I’m aware iRacing don’t own the rights to GPL 🙂 The rights were owned by Sierra.

Its also very likely that the rights agreed for GPL cannot be used for another game, such as iRacing.

The lack of old tracks does rather preclude a “complete” GPL2, but chicanes were around by the late 70s and some tracks won’t have altered that much.
As far as I’m aware iRacing don’t own the rights to GPL 🙂 The rights were owned by Sierra.
Its also very likely that the rights agreed for GPL cannot be used for another game, such as iRacing.

As for old tracks. Well Mosport hasn’t changed since it was built. Watkins Glen is also pretty much the same as the 70s. You could have awesome fun with the 79 at Road America and Road Atlanta too. The Lotus 79 races in America in historic series at the moment too, at Lime Rock and VIR. They also have the Silverstone classic layout which bypasses the chicanes at Vale and Abbey. Should be plenty of running for the Lotus. 🙂

iRacing staff member said although the Corvette is late it’ll probably run a 8 week season (compared to the normal 12 week). So it’ll probably be 4 weeks into the next season it is released, which is about 8 weeks from today.

Jos

well, just tried my torrent version of iracing again, the FF is just really annoying, it feels really canny and just make my g25 feel like a cheap toy, is it supposed to be like that with standard settings?

Jos:
well, just tried my torrent version of iracing again, the FF is just really annoying, it feels really canny and just make my g25 feel like a cheap toy, is it supposed to be like that with standard settings?

Torrent version? First, I don’t think iRacing ever has been cracked, and that’s a good thing. Second, you’re advertising that you’re playing a cracked game? Unwise. :angry:

Second, your issue sounds local. I have a DFP, but friends of mine who play iRacing with a G25 call the FFB the best of any sim they’ve played.

well, just tried my torrent version of iracing again, the FF is just really annoying, it feels really canny and just make my g25 feel like a cheap toy, is it supposed to be like that with standard settings?

Sorry but I can`t agree with that one bit. While many things about iRacing can be argued about, FFB is certainly not one of them.

I´ve reviewed several wheels for this site using iRacing and the FFB is always spot on, without any tweaking, complicated settings or plugins.

FFB is certainly iRacing’s most impressive feature, I wish other simulations would learn from that.

jux

Paul Kelly:
Torrent version? First, I don’t think iRacing ever has been cracked, and that’s a good thing.

Actually, iRacing has been cracked in the sense that a version dating back to a year ago was released as a torrent, but it has no online capabilities.

I have to say I don’t understand the logic of downloading the obsolete torrent instead of taking advantage of the free trial.

Torrent version? First, I don’t think iRacing ever has been cracked, and that’s a good thing. Second, you’re advertising that you’re playing a cracked game? Unwise.
Second, your issue sounds local. I have a DFP, but friends of mine who play iRacing with a G25 call the FFB the best of any sim they’ve played.

LOLWUT?

do a search over minov.. u know

Paul Kelly

Why should I bother searching Mininova when I have the complete online game? As jux said, iRacing without online capabilities is pretty pointless. About as sensible as driving a car without tires.

Sorry but I can`t agree with that one bit. While many things about iRacing can be argued about, FFB is certainly not one of them.
I´ve reviewed several wheels for this site using iRacing and the FFB is always spot on, without any tweaking, complicated settings or plugins.
FFB is certainly iRacing’s most impressive feature, I wish other simulations would learn from that.

Vkt-2

Paul Kelly:
Why should I bother searching Mininova when I have the complete online game? As jux said, iRacing without online capabilities is pretty pointless. About as sensible as driving a car without tires.

is nice to try it without spend money … like a ”DEMO” … 9 cars and 21 tracks :sd:

Your membership registration includes the following promotion:
Radical Test Drive – $0
A complimentary one-month subscription to iRacing.com, including basic content plus the Radical SR8 race car and the Silverstone Circuit race track. Includes the cars and the tracks used by the Rookie Oval series and the Rookie Road Racing series.
———————————————————————————————————————————-

One month trial for $5
Promotion Code: PR-GAMESPOT

Your membership registration includes the following promotion:
1 Month Test Drive Special for New Members – $5
A one month subscription to the service. Includes the cars and the tracks used by the Rookie Oval series and the Rookie Road Racing series. Includes a US$2.50 iRacing credit which can be used at your next subscription renewal, or towards the purchase of additional cars and tracks.

Vkt-2

no thanks , i don’t have any interest in this thing till they go cheaper.

even being 1 month free , i don’t want it because when the time go out i will not pay for it , so this offer is pointless to me , i consider this game a scam for nerds , the price is TOO HIGH if you wanna play it for long time…

Vkt-2:
no thanks , i don’t have any interest in this thing till they go cheaper.
even being 1 month free , i don’t want it because when the time go out i will not pay for it , so this offer is pointless to me , i consider this game a scam for nerds , the price is TOO HIGH if you wanna play it for long time…

LOL, that was a good lough 😀

You missed the whole point, m8!
EA, Polyphony Digital, ISI, Simbin, etc sell you cars, tracks and AI, that you can race all you want. with abs, stability help, autobraking etc. but after a day or so it will get boring and you would want more cars more tracks, better graphics because you want to feel this rewarding feeling of success!

Which leads us to why IRacing can get people to pay 19$ (2 pizza) a month for 2 cars and 7 tracks

IRacing sells you a complete package to race with others,
under the best possible condition. And if you’re good at it, you might get a seat in a real racing car, for a season.

There is only one thing I can say to that.
Any person who are very good at something, will tell you that it is not about the best tools, BUT HOW YOU USE YOUR TOOLS and the expirience, that will give you the ability to fully appreciate a better tool.

9 cars and 21 tracks, is not worth enough for you? :happyevil:
what are your lap times at each track with every car? 😉 LOL 💡 💡
Do you have balls enough to share them with us?

IRacing is not for everyone, and I hope that it wont get to the level of being gamer cheap! I mean, have you ever read comments on youtube, its free to comment there and people do so, which really shows that most people talk before they think!? :sad2:

Paul Kelly

Nerds?

Hmm … you’re a poster and visitor to a sim racing blog. Doesn’t that make you more of a nerd than 95 percent of the people who play Burnout, GRID and other so-called “racing” games on consoles?

Just checking.

Diswanio

Vkt-2: no thanks , i don’t have any interest in this thing till they go cheaper.
even being 1 month free , i don’t want it because when the time go out i will not pay for it , so this offer is pointless to me , i consider this game a scam for nerds , the price is TOO HIGH if you wanna play it for long time…
1 year for $156 and you got crap , no way.
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